I am a very frustrated gardener right now. Our last frost date was only last week so you know my plants aren't quite producing yet. I have nothing to harvest or even really tend to, except weeds. Why is it that a late frost can kill a vegetable plant, but not weeds? Weird, right? Anyway, the one thing I do have a lot of is naturally growing medicinal plants like dandelions, plantain and lambs quarters.
So I'm picking and drying plantain herb today. The herb Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago major) has many amazing uses especially for cuts and bug bites. It really takes the 'owe' out of cat scratches too! In fact, it's the main ingredients in my 2 Ingredient bug bite remedy.
What is Broadleaf Plantain?
Plantain is a perennial 'weed' you probably have growing in your yard or garden. Not to be confused with the banana type fruit you see in some stores. Broadleaf plantain has a rosette of large oval shaped leaves with veins that run from bottom to top. The plant sets out several dense spikes from the center of seeds/flowers.
There are about 250 different species of plantain but we're looking at 'Plantago major'. That's it's official name although it's nickname is "Englishman's foot" by Native Americans because it seemed to appear everywhere in European settlers colonies.
As much of an annoyance as it is, it has many great uses also. It's said that plantain was once called 'snakeweed' because it
helps with snakebites, but don't go trying that just 'cause I said so!
(see a Dr of course!) It is believed to be brought to the Americas by Puritan settlers for medicinal uses.
I know that sometimes it's not easy to find things on this blog. I'm working on that, I promise! I just can't find a post organizing option that I like. In the meantime though, Spring has hit and as we are all starting our gardens (except those lucky people out in California that are already harvesting!) I thought I would round up a bunch of my gardening posts to make them easier to find.
Over the years I've discussed growing herbs, indoor and outdoor containers, rabbits in the garden, bugs in houseplants, seedlings, recycling household items into planters, companion planting, seed organizing and on and on. I've rounded up all of my most popular posts and linked them all to make them easy to find. So, here are my 9 best gardening posts:
Just click each link to take you to the posts:
The best gardening hacks
8 Ways to keep rabbits out of your garden
Putting in tomato cages without loosing your mind
Spice it up: Why plants love cinnamon
Companion Planting
How to control weeds in the garden
Have you ever had an item that no matter what you tried, you just can't figure out how to clean it? It all started a few months ago when I was trying to clean a vase out. I had tried just about every brush and solution I had to clean it but I just couldn't reach down the narrow neck into the larger bottom to get all the scum out of it! Without being able to scrub it, the residue just sat there glued to the sides. Forever.
After soaking it for hours and trying to scrub inside with a toothbrush, my daughter who used to work in a floral shop told me to use denture tablets. Huh? I tried it, it worked and I decided to figure out exactly what else I could use it on. Lo and behold, I've discovered a bunch of uses for these lowly denture tablets!
Denture tablets were designed to clean and disinfect the tiny nooks and crannies of dentures but they can do the same thing for many difficult to clean items in your household.
Not only are they good at cleaning, but their intended to go on a mouthpiece that you simply rinse then put in your mouth.
That sounds pretty safe to me....
Using denture tablets to clean
1) Clean diamond jewelry (not silver or pearls though): Drop a denture tablet into a cup of warm water and add jewelry. Let sit until the fizzing stops then rinse clean.
2) Clean the water reservoir in rug scrubbers. Fill with very warm water and add a few denture tablets. Let sit till the fizzing stops and rinse.
